AfricaPress-Tanzania: PRESIDENT Samia Suluhu Hassan has directed the Minister of State, President’s Office, Regional Administration and Local Government (RALG), Selemani Jafo to work on rampant revenue loss within his docket.
The directive came immediately after the Controller and Auditor General (CAG); Charles Kichere submitted about 21 different audit reports for 2019/2020 Financial Year, which among other things uncovered massive revenue loss within RALGs.
According to the CAG, about 185 LGAs were audited during the 2019/2020 Fiscal Year out of which, only 124 received unqualified opinion reports 53 LGAs received adverse opinion reports while eight of them were slapped with qualified opinion, a move that raised eyebrows of the Head of State.
“There is a lot of loss of public funds within RALG and this has been happening due to the fact that whenever laws are enacted to operate within the Central Government, they believe that they don’t apply in regional and local government authorities,’’ she noted.
According to Ms Samia the late Dr John Magufuli had already warned the minister responsible more than twice.
“I am asking you to go and keep eyes on revenue and expenditure within LGAs and this will be the last warning I am giving and should you fail please ask for help from us,’’ she added.
Ms Samia said the situation was not well within LGAs as they were receiving a lot of money from the Central Government but that money was being squandered.
She asked Mr Jafo to make sure that the money that was collected was not being misappropriated and that the funds disbursed from the treasury should equally be spent on targeted projects.
The President further insisted that there were several other areas that the CAG report uncovered weaknesses, directing all ministers responsible to work on them.
She said she would distribute the reports to all ministers whose ministries seem to have loopholes for revenue loss.
